Gabriel Byrne to Direct United States Premiere of James X Off-Broadway

Tony nominee Gabriel Byrne will direct the U.S. premiere of James X, written by and starring Gerard Mannix Flynn. Produced by Byrne, Liam Neeson and Culture Project, the play begins performances at off-Broadway’s 45 Bleecker Street on December 6 and opens on December 9.

An Irish government tribunal of inquiry into the institutions responsible for the cruel and inhumane treatment of children is in session. In the foyer, James X, one of those children, now a man, anxiously prepares to offer the testimony he hopes will unshackle him from the past. As he waits, James is confronted with the fact that the tribunal he is about to go before is part of the same system that made prisoners of children like him. This truth prompts him to tell the story that will finally set him free.

Byrne, best known as an actor, has appeared on Broadway in A Touch of the Poet and A Moon for the Misbegotten, for which he earned a Tony nomination, and off-Broadway with the Culture Project in The Exonerated. His many film credits include The Usual Suspects, Miller’s Crossing, Little Women, The Last of the High Kings, Stigmata and Vanity Fair, and he was recently heralded for his performance as Dr. Paul Weston in the HBO drama In Treatment.

Flynn starred in the debut production of his play in Dublin in 2009. James X is based in part on his 18-month stint at St. Joseph's Industial School, where he was sent at age 11.